Settlement reached in Toyota acceleration cases
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Toyota Motor Corp. said Wednesday it has reached a settlement worth more than $1 billion in a case involving hundreds of lawsuits over acceleration problems in its vehicles.
The company said in a statement that the deal will resolve cases involving motorists who said the value of their vehicles plummeted after a series of recalls by the Japanese automaker stemming from claims of sudden acceleration defects.
Lawyer Steve Berman, a plaintiffs' attorney, said the settlement is the largest settlement in U.S. history involving automobile defects.
"We kept fighting and fighting and we secured what we think was a good settlement given the risks of this litigation," Berman told The Associated Press.
The proposed deal was filed Wednesday and must receive the approval of U.S. District Judge James Selna, who was expected to review the settlement Friday.
Berman said the total value of the deal is between $1.2 billion and $1.4 billion. Toyota said it will take a one-time, $1.1 billion pre-tax charge against earnings to cover the estimated costs of the settlement.
The case was filed two years ago and divided into two categories: economic loss and wrongful death. Claims by people who seek compensation for injury and death due to sudden acceleration are not part of the settlement.
The first trial involving those suits is scheduled for February.
As part of the economic loss settlement, Toyota said it will offer cash payments to eligible customers who sold vehicles or turned in leased vehicles between September 2009 and December 2010.
The company also will launch a program for 16 million current owners to provide supplemental warranty coverage for certain vehicle components, and it will retrofit about 3.2 million vehicles with a brake override system. An override system is designed to ensure a car will stop when the brakes are applied, even if the accelerator pedal is depressed.
The settlement would also establish additional driver education programs and fund new research into advanced safety technologies.
"In keeping with our core principles, we have structured this agreement in ways that work to put our customers first and demonstrate that they can count on Toyota to stand behind our vehicles," said Christopher Reynolds, Toyota vice president and general counsel.
Toyota has recalled more than 14 million vehicles worldwide due to acceleration problems in several models and brake defects with the Prius hybrid.
The company said plaintiffs' lawyers have been unable to prove that a design defect - namely its electronic throttle control system - was responsible for vehicles surging unexpectedly. Both the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and NASA were unable to find any defects in Toyota's source code that could cause problems.
Toyota has blamed driver error, faulty floor mats and stuck accelerator pedals for the unintended acceleration.
Plaintiffs' attorneys have spent the past two years deposing Toyota employees, poring over thousands of documents and reviewing software code. The results of their efforts have not been made public.
"We are extraordinarily proud of how we were able to represent the interests of Toyota owners, and believe this settlement is both comprehensive in its scope and fair in compensation," Berman said.
The company said in a statement that the deal will resolve cases involving motorists who said the value of their vehicles plummeted after a series of recalls by the Japanese automaker stemming from claims of sudden acceleration defects.
Lawyer Steve Berman, a plaintiffs' attorney, said the settlement is the largest settlement in U.S. history involving automobile defects.
"We kept fighting and fighting and we secured what we think was a good settlement given the risks of this litigation," Berman told The Associated Press.
The proposed deal was filed Wednesday and must receive the approval of U.S. District Judge James Selna, who was expected to review the settlement Friday.
Berman said the total value of the deal is between $1.2 billion and $1.4 billion. Toyota said it will take a one-time, $1.1 billion pre-tax charge against earnings to cover the estimated costs of the settlement.
The case was filed two years ago and divided into two categories: economic loss and wrongful death. Claims by people who seek compensation for injury and death due to sudden acceleration are not part of the settlement.
The first trial involving those suits is scheduled for February.
As part of the economic loss settlement, Toyota said it will offer cash payments to eligible customers who sold vehicles or turned in leased vehicles between September 2009 and December 2010.
The company also will launch a program for 16 million current owners to provide supplemental warranty coverage for certain vehicle components, and it will retrofit about 3.2 million vehicles with a brake override system. An override system is designed to ensure a car will stop when the brakes are applied, even if the accelerator pedal is depressed.
The settlement would also establish additional driver education programs and fund new research into advanced safety technologies.
"In keeping with our core principles, we have structured this agreement in ways that work to put our customers first and demonstrate that they can count on Toyota to stand behind our vehicles," said Christopher Reynolds, Toyota vice president and general counsel.
Toyota has recalled more than 14 million vehicles worldwide due to acceleration problems in several models and brake defects with the Prius hybrid.
The company said plaintiffs' lawyers have been unable to prove that a design defect - namely its electronic throttle control system - was responsible for vehicles surging unexpectedly. Both the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and NASA were unable to find any defects in Toyota's source code that could cause problems.
Toyota has blamed driver error, faulty floor mats and stuck accelerator pedals for the unintended acceleration.
Plaintiffs' attorneys have spent the past two years deposing Toyota employees, poring over thousands of documents and reviewing software code. The results of their efforts have not been made public.
"We are extraordinarily proud of how we were able to represent the interests of Toyota owners, and believe this settlement is both comprehensive in its scope and fair in compensation," Berman said.
Here is a link to my review on Edmund's.com from Sept 2010 http://www.edmunds.com/toyota/corolla/2007/consumer-reviews/i-was-loyal.html?style=100773492&sub=&reviewId=207821769 I got nothing out of my honest review, won't benefit from this settlement, and have no reason to lie. So the commenters ignorantly defending Toyota and implying there was never a problem with the cars can shove it up their...
I sold my POS Toyota that was recalled twice in the first two years after I bought it (new) last July. The company refused to admit there was a problem with the car despite video evidence of the engine revving for no reason, electrical problems and the fact that I took it in to complain about the very issue prior to the recall. I filed complaints witn the BBB and requested a replace or reimburse deal from Toyota but simply because when they ran a diagnostic test no code came up, they denied any issue. I will never buy a Toyota again, the Basta*ds. Toyota, moving forward - like it or not.
wait, are these the people that were able to make a phone call to 911 while flying uncontrollably down the road but couldn't manage to turn the key to 'OFF'? Â or shift to neutral? or apply the emergency brake? Â
 @nobelprizeme The Prius does not have a shifter. Ever actually driven a Prius?
 @Glassman funny you say that.  what would you call that stick with R, N, and D on it?http://image.motortrend.com/f/17960295/112_0905_04z+2010_toyota_prius+interior_view.jpg
or here is a video of shifting it into neutral:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMwXvoGhH0ki guess it doesn't have a key to turn it off, or an emergency brake either...Â
 @nobelprizeme Permit me to clarify. That "stick" is nothing but a fancy switch that tells the electronics which gear to shift into. There is no physical connection between that and the gear selector on the transmission.
Additionally, this car had the retrofit that installed the "fail-safe brake override", a feature that was not on earlier versions of the Prius.
Believe what you wish, but as Ralph Nader would say, Â Toyotas are "Unsafe At Any Speed".
The sad thing is that there was no sudden acceleration. The case that started this in California was when a highway patrolman and his family died in a crash because the accelerator got stuck under a floor mat that was designed for a different model. And then the media got ahold of it and the rest is history. Plenty of tests were done to prove that the cars could not "accelerate suddenly" on their own. Of course that didn't stop thousands of shameless Americans from making false claims. Some were even caught flat out lying due to the black boxes in the cars. Â
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But the trial lawyers never miss an opportunity to get paid in this country, and Toyota probably just wants it to go away.
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To this day, the average person still thinks that these Toyotas were accelerating widely on their own thanks to our gotcha media. Â
 @lakeview Really. Wow - I hadn't heard that anywhere. I've had a scion (made by Toyota) for 5 years and love the car. It's been recalled twice, but I still have been very happy with it.Â
 @lakeview Actually, there was a case where the accelerator module was found to be faulty.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1246553/Toyota-consider-UK-car-recall-defective-accelerators-U-S-models.html
Just imagine what the settlement would of been if something had been defective...
The people that were complaining about this are the people that you find in mental institutions or that should be in one. FACT!
@Lucas Cole Yeah? I'm not in a mental institution, I have a job a senior systems engineer; I have an apartment, a dog, I surf, snowboard, and have a good life. I did have a 2004 Tundra that I leased brand new, and while operating in cruise control, it suddenly accelerated a few times. I never complained, I surrendered it at the end of the lease before I found this was an issue. Fact!
 Let's play a math game, why don't we? First of all, the settlement was 1.1 billion dollars for 16 million Toyota customers. Assuming the attorney(s) pocket half of that, divide the remaining money between the plaintiffs and you get a check for a whopping $34.38 per person. This is why class action lawsuits are horrible. The only ones getting rich are the lawyers.
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Wow! For a automobile company that always said there was nothing wrong with their cars and then blaimed it on floor mats, that's a hugh turn around and settlement.
 @DDG turn around?  they still haven't proved their was anything wrong with the vehicle.  toyota is just handing out checks and training wheels to get people to quiet down about their false claims.  its cheaper for them to settle than take the bad PR.
 @nobelprizeme  @DDG http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1246553/Toyota-consider-UK-car-recall-defective-accelerators-U-S-models.html
@DDG  The problem is that the vast majority had no problems with their cars. As the article states, anyone that sold or turned in their leased vehicle, they were eligible to participate in the lawsuit.